


52 Pick-Up

by wurmz



Category: Persona 4
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Road Trip, slow burn?, yosuke and souji fraternize while things explode in the background
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 11:11:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9069034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wurmz/pseuds/wurmz
Summary: If a multi-dimensional murder mystery could occur and find resolution within a year, a few months is enough time for a little unrequited romance to turn into the complete de- and re- construction of someone's entire ego.





	

**GAME: START**

 

Just as the sun yawned over the horizon of a mild October day, Yosuke Hanamura laid the limp body of his best friend down upon a pristine penthouse carpet.

This was so fucked.

His heart was pounding. His vision was swimming. Question marks were cutting dizzying jigs around his head.

He knelt at Souji's side as Rise threw herself over his chest to sob into his sweater. Every morning since they started staying with her, she came out of her room looking like Miss Universe. Today, though, her face was totally bare of any make-up and her hair was piled into a haphazard bun, rat's nests and all. In any other situation he might wonder how many other guys got to see her so harried. But it wasn't any other situation. It was the _worst_ situation he could ever dream of, and all he could think of was... was...

"Senpai!" Rise took his face into her hands and attempted to stir him awake. Her cheeks were flushed bright red. "Senpai, please... Listen to me. Look... We're here."

...He thought of their high scores in the Okina arcade. The Jack Frost dolls they won. The time that they'd tried the coffee together and had woken up two hours later in a town they couldn't recognize.

"This is wrong," Teddie murmured from the corner, huddling into himself and shivering. "Something about Sensei just doesn't feel right."

He thought of Aiya's noodles. They would spend the hours after stuffing themselves to the gills laying on the carpet in pain with nothing but game shows to ease their suffering.

"Shut up. Shut up, Ted," Yosuke managed to sputter out. His tongue felt swollen with rage. "I don't want to hear it."

He thought of idol magazines, of the Boast-It notes they'd stick in the margins with detailed critiques of their outfits and poses. He could tell you exactly where the best of them were stashed, even now; back in his old room, in his closet, up the sleeves of the nerdiest sweater he'd ever had the misfortune of being gifted.

"Is he going to die?" Rise asked.

"What?" _Die?_ No other word could ever ring so thunderously in his ears. He felt the urge to pinch himself awake, because no one would ever think for a second that Souji Seta would ever allow himself to die. "No. No! He's not going to die, goddamn it!" Think, think of anything else. "He's fine. I healed him. He'll wake up any second now." Any other word. Think, **think.**

Highschool.

He thought of highschool.

So many sensations could be conjured up by those memories.

Sights, the view from the rooftop.

Smells, Mystery Food X... Ugh, okay, not that.

 _Tastes,_ Mystery Foo— No.

 ** _Tastes._**  Salty tears, Souji's lunches. That chemical tang you get in the back of your throat after someone's punched you square in the nose. Much better.

Good things, nice things, Souji's fingers ghosting over his—

"What's going on?" Naoto stood just outside the doorway, bewildered. A cup of coffee sat steaming in his hands.

"Naoto-kun," Rise gasped, leaping to her feet to regard the newcomer with pleading hands. "Please, help us. He won't wake up no matter what we do!"

The detective was by their side in half an instant. His hands were on Souji's pallid cheeks, turning his head side to side. Examining the victim. "What happened?"

Rise turned Yosuke's way. The sheets of tears in her reddened eyes made her irises glitter. It was one of those looks girls give you when they're too undone to speak. It should've made him feel guilty, and he knew it— but— "Yosuke-senpai," she sniffled, "He..."

Oh, hell no.

"Don't you _dare_ turn this on me!" Yosuke saw stars. He saw ovals. He saw rhombuses and triangles and just about every parallelogram he could think of. He might have seen a couple of Sasquatches tiptoeing in the background. He didn't know. He couldn't think. "I didn't do this. You know I didn't." His teeth were grit so hard that he could hear them creak under pressure. "You _saw._ I was just— No, _we were just—_ " He reiterated purposefully, hands curling into fists.

Naoto was beside him now. He laid a hesitant hand on his shoulder, gaze hardened. "Calm down. We're not blaming you for anything yet," he reassured him, though the possible intent behind the word *yet* made Yosuke's skin prickle. "I just need you to explain this to me. All of it." He swallowed, thickly. "Now." He met his unwavering gaze, steeled, searching his expression for any signs of suspicion.

Yosuke, in times of emotional turmoil, craves action. He wants to point fingers. He wants to enact justice and be done with it. It's hard. It's awful. In situations as difficult as this, the easy solution is the best solution, and so...

He cracked. "We... Look, every time we've done this, he's been perfectly fine."

Naoto eyed him expectantly. "Every time you've done... What, exactly?" Yosuke felt a line of sweat slip down underneath the collar of his shirt. He could feel the eyes of everyone in the room were boring holes into him.

This was what it felt like to be dangled over a pit of sharks. He'd never look at spy movies the same way again.

"It's not like we didn't know it was stupid, okay? I didn't even think he would go for it, but he did, a-and w-we..." He heard the warble in his voice and felt an intense urge to curb stomp himself. Teardrops were lining the gates and it was hard for him to focus on anything but staving them back.

"Hanamura-san," Naoto prodded him in a low voice, exuding all the gravity of a true detective. "What did you do?"

Yosuke bit his lip and looked away. "I..."

Naoto looked to Rise, who sniffled, "He..."

Next he looked to Teddie. He was biting his nails. "They..."

Finally, Naoto rose to his feet and scanned all the room's inhabitants at once, shoulders squared and gaze unwavering. "Alright. I'll start with another question." A hush came over the room as he took a steadying breath. "When did all of this start?"

The question struck him harder than it should've. So many things had happened. So much of the last few months could be considered as the start of something big. But where would a detective pick up the story?

The discourse surrounding him faded until it was nearly mute. His bleary eyes travelled down to the hands in his lap. Tied snugly around the base of his ring finger, something caught his eye. Red yarn. It was rough, itchy, and a little chaffing, but he hadn't taken it off. Not since Souji put it there.

Under his tremendous mental strain, the less important details of his world melted like watercolor. Distorted, pooled together, faded to grayscale. He sat, mesmerized by the vibrancy of his own skin and the contrast of it against the silhouettes of his friends.

"Ah— Y-Yosuke-kun?"

His pulse thrummed in his ears. When he took the tail of the yarn in his fingertips and began to pull the knot loose, his veins were throbbing so hard that his skin twitched with every heartbeat.

"Hey, hey, Yosuke... You're listening, right?"

Where would a detective start the story? Nah. The real question was: Where would _he_ start it?

"Hanamura-sa—"

The knot loosened. The room went dark.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this for about a year now and I finally figured I oughta get the show on the road. The first chapter was gonna be longer but I thought it flowed better the way it is now, and also I was going insane. This is gonna be a lotta fun. 
> 
> Side note, this is the first fanfiction I've written since I was 12 years old. That's six years. The last one also had to do with an Atlas game. Go figure.


End file.
